Cable television systems (and other networks) deliver video, voice, and internet data connectivity to residential customers over the radio frequency (RF) spectrum made available through hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) cable communications networks. Internet data is delivered using a set of standards called Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) which define the way that a portion of the RF Spectrum can be allocated and managed to deliver Internet Protocol (IP) data traffic to network cable modems along with video traffic. Because downstream IP traffic has grown over recent years at a compound annual growth rate of 40-60%, cable services bandwidth and the spectrum it requires has become increasingly scarce. While cable industry hardware and software advances have incrementally increased the amount of bandwidth that can be accommodated by a fixed (e.g., 1 GHz) spectrum, allocation of the spectrum among competing linear video and internet data sources has become more and more challenging for MSO operators.